Honor and Integrity personified

Currently the USA is a government of the banker for the banker by the banker. We get service only and if it helps the banker first and foremost.
Or occasionally we are thrown a bone if it costs nothing and does not hurt the banker.

Around 1776, certain important people in the English colonies made a discovery that would prove enormously useful for the next two hundred years. They found that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from favorites of the British Empire.

In the process, they could hold back a number of potential rebellions and create a consensus of popular support for the rule of a new, privileged leadership.

When we look at the American Revolution this way, it was a work of genius, and the Founding Fathers deserve the awed tribute they have received over the centuries.

They created the most effective system of national control devised in modern times, and showed future generations of leaders the advantages of combining paternalism with command.

In 1789, the political price for our federal constitution included a bailout of the 13 indebted states. The 1789 bailout was part of a grand bargain designed by Alexander Hamilton to convert the creditors of the 13 states into advocates of a stronger federal government—one having the ability to raise all revenues required to service the large debts that the Continental Congress and the 13 states had both accumulated to finance that "Glorious Cause," our war of independence.

Hamilton and George Washington wanted those debts to be paid. They had to engineer institutional changes to achieve that goal. Under our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, the continental government had virtually no power to tax. For revenues it depended on voluntary contributions from the 13 states.

Hamilton's Report on Public Credit from 1790 describes the grand bargain and his reasons for advocating it. The Articles were replaced by the new U.S. Constitution, which shifted exclusive authority to levy tariffs from the states to the federal government. In return, the Congress assumed the states' debts in August 1790.

The federal government immediately imposed a tariff, and it used about half of the ample revenues that soon rolled in to service its debts. State and federal debts went from trading at deep discounts to par in the early 1790s.

Why did Hamilton and Washington want to honor our debts? Because they wanted the U.S. government to build a good reputation vis-a-vis its creditors.

Hamilton reasoned that honoring the existing debts would allow the government to borrow on good terms in the future. That ability to borrow would generate fiscal flexibility by creating a prospective source of revenues beyond current taxes, one that might be used to finance surges in government expenditures associated with wars and other future difficulties and opportunities.

Why did Hamilton and Washington want the federal government to bail out the 13 states? Because they wanted to realign interests in a way that would induce voters to support a federal government with ample ability to tax.

U.S. Debt and Foreign Loans, 1775-1795

During the American Revolution, a cash-strapped Continental Congress accepted loans from France. Paying off these and other debts incurred during the Revolution proved one of the major challenges of the post-independence period. The new U.S. Government attempted to pay off these debts in a timely manner, but the debts were at times a source of diplomatic tension.

In order to pay for its significant expenditures during the Revolution, Congress had two options: print more money or obtain loans to meet the budget deficit. In practice it did both, but relied more on the printing of money, which led to hyperinflation. At that time, Congress lacked the authority to levy taxes, and to do so would have risked alienating an American public that had gone to war with the British over the issue of unjust taxation.

The French Government began to secretly ship war materiel to the American revolutionaries in late 1775. This was accomplished by establishing dummy corporations to receive French funds and military supplies. It was unclear whether this aid was a loan or a gift, and disputes over the status of this early assistance caused strong disagreement between American diplomats in Europe. Arthur Lee, one of the American commissioners in France, accused another, Silas Deane, of financial misdealings, while the third member of the commission, Benjamin Franklin, remained aloof. Lee eventually succeeded in convincing Congress to recall Deane. The early French aid would later resurface as one of the disputes behind the 1797 XYZ Affair that led to the Quasi-War with France.

During the Revolution, the French Government also provided the Americans with loans, eventually totaling over two million dollars, most of which were negotiated by Benjamin Franklin. John Adams also secured a loan from Dutch bankers in 1782. After fighting between the Americans and the British ended in 1783, the new U.S. Government established under the Articles of Confederation needed to pay off its debt, but lacked sufficient tax authority to secure any revenue. The government struggled to pay off the loans, stopping payments of interest to France in 1785 and defaulting on further installments that were due in 1787. The United States also owed money to the Spanish Government and private Dutch investors, but focused on paying off the Dutch because Amsterdam remained the most likely source of future loans, which the United States successfully obtained in 1787 and 1788, despite its precarious financial state.

My favorite toys when I was a kid were those little all green Army Men...

Then I grew up...

FUK WAR!!!...

FUK KILLING FELLOW HUMANS that are just following "ORDERS"...

NOTHING cool about it!!!...

NOTHING at all...


Some here sound like they THINK it is...

Killing Iraqies based on a Lie
They were just protecting their Country against the evil Occupiers

No wonder so many returning vets commit suicide

They have Bush's blood on the hands

Khartoum attack escalates Iran-Israel covert war
Atul Aneja

The covert war between Iran and Israel, being fought along a broad front, escalated on Tuesday with Tehran again drawing international attention to the aerial bombardment of a weapons manufacturing unit in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast slammed international organisations and western powers for being silent about Israel’s “aggressions against regional countries”.

Sudan’s Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman had on Wednesday accused Israel of using its warplanes to attack the Yarmouk Complex where weapons were being manufactured. Two people died in the attack.

Analysts say the alleged strike by Israel, which Tel Aviv has neither confirmed nor denied, contained a bigger message for Iran. If Israeli planes could target a facility 1,900 km away with no one raising an alarm, they had the ability to strike Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, which is around 1,600 km away. After the strike, sections of Israeli media are talking about their country’s advancement in mid-air refuelling that allowed their planes to travel such a long distance undetected.

Now, eleven years later, we are back to the norm of those many that have absolutely no gratitude for the freedoms/liberities that 100's of thousands have given their lives for in order to insure them.

Amazingly, this is the exact same prevailing selfish/ungrateful attitude that brought down so many other great societies in the past 2000 or so years.

Talk about not learning from prior lessons.... whatever.

Most having absolutely no clue as to the realities of the "bad guys" out there that truly exist and live for nothing more than to see this country destroyed.